I can’t imagine that she enjoys it all that much.  Leo is the usual culprit.  He seems to enjoy launching himself off of the top of the loft more so than Zorro.

It often starts when they know Shara is in the guest room.  She tries to keep them out by closing the door.  But that does no good in this house since Zorro has figured out how to open all of the doors in the place.  We once came home to our home in Seattle to find every cupboard and drawer in the kitchen wide open.

Anyway, Zorro will open the door and they’ll both go scurrying under the bed.  Shara will most likely turn over and they’ll run back into our room.  Leo will slowly decide to investigate Shara and jump up onto the bed.

Yes, I know that there is a bicycle in the bedroom.  There’s just no other place to keep it.  The Japanese aren’t real big into storage areas here.  Anyway, Zorro then gets curious.

And let the games begin!

Zorro was whining at the door like he wanted to go out (yea, right). So I tossed him out there. It was pretty funny. I think it’s his first time being out in snow. They were both born in Spain, so this is a new development for them. They saw snow in Washington once, but it wasn’t like this!

And unless you are a great lover of cats or D.J. don’t bother with the video. It’s just Zorro investigating the snow. 42 seconds of boringness for anyone but D.J. and I. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Please note that I did not pick out these curtains. They came with the house.

This is not the first time he’s tried this. He used to do it in Washington, too. As you can see.

Once he finished, we got Leo on tape.  And that’s my friend Shara’s voice in the background, if you were wondering.

So, DJ is back to work (even though there isn’t much to get done since it’s still New Years day in the states) and I have been cleaning up. We had Shara and her friend stay here from Sunday night to Monday night so I had plenty of cleaning to do. Mostly just sweeping since the wood floors collect so much dust and cat hair, that I could easily sweep every day and still have to sweep a few more times to make it decent. But once my sweeping and washing dishes is finished, I like to stretch out on the living room floor with the kitties (today only Zorro felt up to it) in the sun and listen to my podcasts.

Listening to podcasts are one way I get to connect with news from the states, keep the house filled with voices (it can get a little lonely) and still feel like I’m learning something. They are extremely handy for my hour long trip to base when I take public transportation and on the car trip back, when I get to use my FM transmitter. The radio in the car is American, which doesn’t pick up Japanese frequencies (ours are too high and theirs are too low). I could listen to CD’s, which I do, or I can listen to the military AFN network play bad music. So, again, the podcasts save my life.

For example, when I was in Australia and DJ had left early in the morning to go back to the ship and my flight didn’t leave until late in the evening, my podcasts came to be of great comfort. He had gone to finish the deployment (another two months) and I was wandering around the city alone and facing the imminent return to an empty house. The only way I was able to get through that day was in listening to my podcasts (thank you Click and Clack).

So…today was sunny (up until a few minutes ago…it’s now clouding over) and beautiful. The temps. are still in the mid to lower 50’s and I’ve got the heat on downstairs (no central heat in Japan). And Zorro and I spent the better part of the morning hanging out on the floor. That is…until the birdies started a party in the backyard. Then I was no longer very interesting to him.

They have also, on occasion, made phone calls. Once while we were living in Washington one of them stepped on the phone and made a long distance call to my parents (at midnight – oops) and today. Leo thought it was a good idea to lie down on the phone and call mom’s cell phone. Can you tell that I talk to my parents a lot, since it’s always their number on the redial? The kitties also make it very hard to type. Especially in the winter because the heater is located directly above the desk (it’s a wall unit). They bask in the warmth that is the heater and kick me out. And I let them, because I am such a sucker for my boys when they cuddle.